thoughts from blue

[katster]

w00t! made the last BART train back to the East Bay tonight!

It's not as crucial as it used to be, making that last BART train home, because I have a Cal student bus pass and AC Transit is wiser than BART (running a bus once an hour into downtown Oakland throughout the night). If BART would run one train an hour, it'd be better than this "must desperately make last train of the night".

(Although rumour has it that AC Transit wants to cut the A. Fsck.)

Anyway...I'm writing this in my semagic client on the train. I went to SF today, to catch a movie that looked sort of interesting. It was pointed to by mikz, and as I had nothing better to do, I decided to go. So, I met mikz and his friend K there (I dunno if she has an LJ name, or if she feels comfortable with me revealing her full name, so that'll do for now.) Anyway, the flick was called Truth and Lies about 9-11.

It was interesting, but I'm not sure if it was interesting in a good or bad way. If every word of it is true, then it's pretty depressing. Anyway, it's a speech put together by the guy that publishes From the Wilderness, which is ... well, an alternative news magazine. (As you can see when you visit the homepage, there's an ad for a copy of the movie I watched tonight.) And while I'm still processing what it's all about, there's a part of me quietly whispering that goddamn it, this isn't my America.

Y'see, as a kid, I was brought up to believe that government was good. And even when I got older, and could see where the government flubbed a few things...y'know, it was more incompetence than malice. I, and probably every other American, wants to believe that government is really and truly mostly good. Which is probably why all the cognitive dissonance, and I feel sorta depressed about the future of my country.

I dunno. Not sure what to think at the moment, because I'm not sure what to do.

And AC Transit sucks. I rode the 51 four times today, and once was it anywhere resembling reasonable. AC Transit has a budget crisis, which leads me to wonder why they don't save money by not printing schedules. They don't stick to them anyway.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now. As I have no real pressing reason to go to Berkeley tomorrow (short of getting a reader, which I can do Friday), I think I'm just going to sleep. After this week, I deserve it.

(really need that thoughtful icon.)

Comments

Hugs offered

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Not sure what to think at the moment, because I'm not sure what to do.

I grew up in NYC, which for all intensive purposes means that as a thinking person who read 1984 and Brave New World during those years, I am inately paranoid. I can pick out other NYers by their level of paranoia - like during the Stonewall 25 march, we had a client terrified to stay in hotels with other gay folks because "the government will know where we are and they can put ebola in the water supply." My response, "You're originally from NY, aren't you?" She was.

That said, you now know where I am coming from, which is that I don't trust the government at all. Which is not to say that I trust the media either.

Which leaves me also not knowing what to do. Well, what to do about it, I should say. Because I know what to do - I pay more attention, I do my own research, I try to get first hand information whenever possible. For what it's worth, I'm more careful in my voting.

Whether the government is devious and malicious or just willfully stupid really matters very little. What matters is what We The People do, at least IMHO. I believe in grass roots, though they can also be full of less than insightful people, and people who are not always open to having ideas challenged. But they are also more likely to HAVE people who are willing to challenge their own idea/ls. And I think that's the key factor.

All of the above, my own opinions, and some lame attempt at offering comfort.

looking over shoulder for men in black suits)

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Personally, I haven't trusted the government in a long time [any of them, either government]

We've been lied to, from day one. and if the government isn't playing dirty pool, then someone behind the scenes certainly is.

I wonder just how long it's going to go on before something breaks.

OK...

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

While there is always, in every state, the chance that powerful people will use the legitimate fears of the many (I don't like categories like "the masses" and "the mob") to create an authoritarian or totalitarian state, we are a very long way away from that, and there is much that we can do to prevent it. There really, truly is.

One thing we can do is not go looking for "hidden hands". The "hidden hand" is a way to keep people from looking at the real sources of power. In Germany and Russia the "hidden hand" was the Jews; in much of Southeast Asia it's now the Chinese; here, it's starting to sound like we think breaking windows in McDonald's is somehow going to set us free, as if the folks who run and work for multi-national corporations were somehow Not Us.

The Bush administration's desire to give away our air and water to Big Business is not evidence of a conspiracy. It's a perfectly sincere carrying-out of a clearly stated ideological principal. Naturally, people who hold by such principals club together--so do those who disagree with them.

What we have to do is first, clearly articulate the opposing position.

Second, we should not be so bound up in the logic and correctness of our approach that we can't negotiate.

And third, we have to make it clear to many, many other people that there is a way to be both free and safe; and that, given the choice, freedom is better.

I keep on going back to something I read about six months ago: "Americans are a people who believe, and are willing to suffer and even die for the belief that no one should be forced to die for a belief. And Americans believe, with transcendent faith, that it is possible to live a good and decent life without a transcendent cause. Nothing is ever perfectly clear. Let us be clear about that."

This is a complex thing to live out. It's very difficult to show loyalty to a negative ideal. But it can and must be done.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

That site looks kind of interesting, and I'm not sure how much of it is in a tinhat way..

And was that in a theatre? If so, I have to admire that, most cities would be scared shitless of showing a movie with that kind of name in anyplace vaguely public. ;)